15 April 2009

At Vast Public Indifference, Caitlin G. D. Hopkins looks at one of the hidden pitfalls of teaching elementary school: the suggestive spelling test.

Our district used a scripted reading curriculum called Open Court — all the 2nd grade classes across the whole 20-school district read the same story during the same week and are supposed to do the exact same activities, etc. If you have a hardass principal, it can be awful, but parts of it aren't that bad. The 2nd grade curriculum has some really great units (Fossils, Camouflage) and some terrible units (Kindness).

The people who developed Open Court were never children. They have no children of their own and have never met any children. Proof of this: the very first lesson in the 4th grade Open Court curriculum, week 1, day 1, is a vocabulary lesson including the words "cockpit" and "abreast." All fourth graders think this is amazingly hilarious. First year teachers who've spent all summer working on ulcers and reading about "classroom management" do not.

But I don't think it's all Open Court's fault. From the Open Court Resources website, I learned that "cockpit" and "abreast" come out of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien. In other words, the problem isn't misguided cookie-cutter lesson plans and vocabulary tests--it's literature!

That same resources website offers a picture of a woodcock for when that word comes up in these lessons--which Caitlin says is far more often than one would expect.

About the Author

J. L. BELL is a writer and reader of fantasy literature for children. His favorite authors include L. Frank Baum, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper. He is an Assistant Regional Advisor in the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, and was the editor of Oziana, creative magazine of the International Wizard of Oz Club, from 2004 to 2010.

Living in Massachusetts, Bell also writes about the American Revolution at Boston 1775.